I used to think a year was a long time. I was 9 going on 10 and thought I would never reach double digits. I was 12 going on 13 and thought I would never become a teenager. I was 15 going on 16 and thought I would never be able to drive. And now, a year living in Panama flew by without me ever wondering when the next year would come. Maybe it means I am finally getting old and all of the years are starting to run together. Maybe it means since I have now been double digits for (countless) years, somehow survived the teenage years and now walk everywhere without giving a thought to driving, the days between my birthdays do not last so long. However, I am going to say the year passed as fast as it did because of the wonderful, intellectual, enlightening people, both Peace Corps Volunteers and community members I have met, the crazy, sometimes wonderful, other times dreadful experiences I have had, and all of the loving support I have received from my friends, family, and even friends of family or friends while I have been in Panama.
It was not always easy. Two weddings happened. Three engagements. Endless birthdays and celebrations. Friends and family with new jobs, new graduate schools, hard breakups and new relationships. It was not always easy being here listening to my friends power through their changing life for better or worse or my family celebrating yet another occasion. I tried hard to let it pass without being sad but sometimes you just were. That is when I would raid my food box labeled ‘America’ and found that there is not much in life chocolate covered fruit, or chocolate covered anything for that matter, cannot fix.
However, at some point during this year I stopped raiding my ‘America’ box every time I talked to someone from the States. Nor do I run to my nonexistent food box labeled ‘rice’, don’t you fret. I am still celebrating birthdays. I am now a part of two new incredibly diverse families who treat me as their own daughter, and I have a multitude of animal babies. I congratulate my new friends in the community as they move away to new jobs, graduate from college or have another baby. I attend birthday parties with singing, freshly killed chicken, and of course, lots of rice. I celebrate Christmas with newfound friends, making memories in a new way, a new place. I belly laugh with people in my community as I say the wrong word which means something completely different. I play in the rain with my seven-year-old neighbor girl, relishing in the fact that we do not have to carry water to bathe today. I dance with the neighbor boys to crazy American music they do not understand with my Luci light on disco mode until my head feels like it might explode. I laugh until I cry as I try and teach community members various interactive games before our seminars which they hardly understand but still try their best. I make a fool of myself learning the Ngabere language until every conversation ends with ‘Ah Meriyi’, with them wondering where in the world I had learned these new words. I feel the joy in teaching young girls in the community how to throw a softball with the first glove they ever put on, even if they do put it on the wrong hand.
A year in Panama. What to say? How to say it? Where to even begin? I am still trying to figure it out. Trying to figure it out while in the meantime I am teaching Bravo new tricks in three languages, hanging pictures of my old friends and family as well as new ones in my house, and making faces at my host sister’s new baby whom they named Meriyi as well. I celebrated a year of new traditions and celebrations, belly laughs and rain dances and am looking even more forward to the year I have left. The year of more tears, both happy and sad, more animal babies, both to eat and to cuddle, and eating more chocolate covered yummy thing hidden in my ‘America’ box just because.
UPDATES!